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New Delhi: As Prime Minister Narendra Modi completes one year in office, his cuts in federal welfare spending on the poorest of India's 1.25 billion people are coming in for sharp criticism, including from within his cabinet.

New Delhi: As the confrontation between Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Lt Governor Najeeb Jung peaks, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said people's experiment with AAP has turned out to be "very costly" and asked the party to realise its responsibilities as it came to power with a historic mandate.

The Make In India logo of a lion may have been inspired by a Zurich bank's promotional campaign, According to the report, the design of a lion with industrial wheels behind it, belonged to a sponsored campaign of the Cantonal Bank of Zurich in Switzerland.

Recent talk everywhere among those who take care of their kids is all about Maggi has been banned in several states across India as lead was found in the product. Days after the controversy over Maggi, people are scared to consume packed food items.

Pervez Musharraf from Islamabad says in apparent warning of using nuclear weapons against India, former Pakistan military ruler Pervez Musharraf said on Thursday that Pakistan did not build nuclear weapons to fire on Shab-e-Baraat, an Islamic festival celebrated two weeks ahead of the fasting month of Ramzan every year.

A security flaw in the SwiftKey-developed keyboards pre-installed on Samsung smartphones is leaving at least 600 million devices vulnerable to hackers. The flaw, discovered by security firm NowSecure, could allow hackers to take control over those devices, which use unencrypted connections to update when users download new language packs.

The government is getting ready to launch PM Narendra Modi's most ambitious scheme: Housing for all by 2022. Modi is likely to launch the scheme as an umbrella mission, dovetailing all affordable housing schemes and slum redevelopment projects.

An Indian scholar has launched an Urdu application for smartphones providing information for Haj and Umrah pilgrims.
Najeeb Qasmi, speaking at the launch in Riyadh recently, said the initiative involved Mudassir Ayyub, lecturer at King Saud University, and Muhammad Abdul Basit Khan from Lahore University in Pakistan.

Torrential rain submerged large parts of India’s financial capital Mumbai on Friday and brought local train services to a grinding halt, leaving thousands of commuters stranded across the city as traffic moved sluggishly on waterlogged roads.

Terrorist attacks worldwide surged by more than a third and fatalities soared by 81 percent in 2014, a year that also saw Islamic State eclipse al Qaeda as the leading jihadist militant group, the U.S. State Department said on Friday.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has agreed on the preliminary definitions for the future 5G standard for mobile networking. A conference in San Diego to decide on the future of the standard was held from June 10th to 18th, where a 12 member delegation sat to draw up the specifications.

Greece took a step back from the abyss on Monday with the presentation of new budget proposals that euro zone leaders welcomed as a basis for a possible agreement in the coming days to unlock frozen aid and avert a looming default.

Former world champion Viswanathan Anand played out an easy draw as black against Hikaru Nakamura of United States and remained in joint third position after the end of the fifth round of Norway Chess 2015, a part of the Grand Chess Tour.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday pitched for conducting an aptitude test for all students and greater synergy between the 'Digital India' initiative and related programmes of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 1 will launch digital locker facility that will help citizens to digitally store their important documents like PAN card, passport, mark sheets and degree certificates

Uttar Pradesh will get to nominate maximum number of cities to be developed as 'Smart Cities', followed by Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.
Ahead of the mega launch of NDA government's flagship urban projects, the government has assigned number of cities each state/union territory can nominate under the 100 Smart Cities project as well as those to be developed under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation scheme.

Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Wednesday apologized for the deadly 2013 attack at a hearing before a U.S. judge formally sentenced him to death for killing four people and injuring 264 in the bombing and its aftermath.

On the eve of 40th anniversary of imposition of the Emergency, government on Wednesday decided to set up a national memorial for socialist icon JayaPrakash Narayan in his birthplace in Bihar where assembly polls are likely this September-Octobe

The Reserve Bank on Thursday extended the deadline for exchanging pre-2005 currency notes of various denominations, including Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, by six months, till December 31, 2015. The earlier deadline would have expired on June 30.

Home Ministry has overruled the demand of External Affairs Ministry, which requested that biometrics of tourists visiting India be collected once they have arrived here and not at the visa application stage.

Haryana Government today sanctioned an amount of Rs 7 crore for the year 2015-16 to provide free bicycles to Schedule caste (SC) studentsstudying in government schools of the state here, official said.

Beef may be having rough days under the BJP government, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to China last monthmay have cleared the way for export of the meat to the world's biggest market two years after an agreement was signed. Agri-products such as pomegranate, non-basmati rice and okra could also find their way to China as India steps up efforts to reduce the imbalance in bilateral trade.

Five samples from five KFC outlets have been found to contain harmful pathogens, salmonella and E.coli bacteria. The Telangana State Food Laboratory (SFL), which conducted the test on the bidding of NGO Balala Hakula Sangham, called the samples "unsafe" even as KFC rejected the findings and denied any knowledge of the samples being collected in the first place.

"Around 70 people died due to heavy rains," Gujarat state health minister and spokesperson Nitin Patel said. According to figures provided by the Gujarat state emergency control room, 26 people died in Amreli, which is the worst hit district, while five deaths each have been reported in Bharuch, Jamnagar, Kutch and Rajkot districts

India is drawing up a comprehensive package to help state-run banks, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said on Wednesday, as part of efforts to nurse them back to health and improve the flow of credit to industry.

Reliance Industries will make an investment of over Rs. 250,000 crore in the digital space, including rollout of wireless broadband infrastructure and manufacturing of mobile handsets, its chairman Mukesh Ambani said on Wednesday.

China, the world's largest carbon emitter, has put up advertisements at public places depicting the environmental issues in Indian cities like Mumbai to warn its people about the impact of climate change and encourage them to plan future around low carbon development.

Actor Pallavi Joshi has written to the I&B Ministry saying that she doesn’t want to be a part of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) society following the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as the chairperson.

Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttarakhand and Tripura are the only States which have reduced the proportion of underweight adolescent girls according to the findings of the Rapid Survey on Children (RSOC), a nation-wide sample survey of over one lakh households conducted by the UNICEF.

While Amazon already offered mobile apps for sorting your photos and music parked in its Cloud Drive repository, there wasn't an option for getting at all of your stored files. Late last week, a dedicated Cloud Drive app for iOS arrived in the iTunes App Store, joining both Android and Amazon versions that debuted in late June -- all three of which rolled out rather quietly. Similar to the Dropbox app, the mobile software allows you to organize and access photos, videos, documents, spereadsheets and other files you've stored in Cloud Drive.

When the devastating quake struck Nepal in April, millions of people across the globe prayed and donated money for the victims. Thousands even rushed to the country to volunteer for short-term services, but only a few stayed for long

The 5-nation BRICS group today signed an agreement to create a USD 100 billion pool of foreign- exchange reserves to help each other "in case of any problems with dollar liquidity", with India chipping in USD 18 billion.

In a move that could intensify the confrontation between the Modi government and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, Sen has now gone public with what he calls his "ouster" from the Chancellor-ship of Nalanda University

Angry over alleged eve-teasing, the girl on Sunday stopped Ankit Rajput's motorcycle by blocking the way with her bicycle in front of Puranpur police station and dragged him inside the premises, police said.

A CAG report has slammed the Censor Board for flouting several norms and converting 172 “A” category certified films into “UA” category films and 166 films of “UA” category into “U” category films during 2012-15 without taking any law or provision into account, according to an RTI query.

The first ever family of five stars bound to each other by gravity has been discovered by astronomers of the Open University, UK. This bizarre system is located around 250 light years away from us in the constellation of Ursa Major.

The Union home ministry has declared whole of Nagaland as a "disturbed area" for a further period of one year from June 30, 2015. Its notification in this regard states that the Central government is of the opinion that the entire state is in such a "disturbed" and "dangerous" condition that the use of armed forces in aid of civil power is "necessary".

The Gujarat government on Thursday announced a ban on another two instant food products after test results indicated presence of lead and monosodium glutamate (MSG) in some of the samples tested by the state Food and Drugs Control Administration (FDCA).

India's programme to fight tuberculosis is in disarray due to a shortage of funds and the government has failed to meet annual targets to control spread of the nation's most fatal infectious illness, a leaked assessment report said.

China slammed UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for criticising its new national security law potentially harmful to civil liberties, on Thursday, saying it amounted to interference in the country's internal affairs.

: For Bhalaji Damor, man of the series in the first cricket world cup for the blind, life has bowled a googly. The ace all-rounder, who took India to the semi-finals of the tournament in 1998, now tends buffaloes and does odd farm jobs for a living.

The Rajasthan High Court has directed the Indian government to immediately implement a rule for bigger health warnings on tobacco packaging, months after the measure was put on hold pending a report from a parliamentary panel.

Heralding a new era, India tonight launched its heaviest commercial space mission ever with its polar rocket successfully putting five British satellites into the intended orbit after a flawless takeoff.

BJP president Amit Shah on Friday said it was his party that gave the maximum number of OBC chief ministers and the first OBC prime minister to the country, adding that only his party could work for the welfare of backward classes.

NDA ally and former Bihar CM Jitan Ram Manjhi on Sunday sought a “respectable” offer from the BJP in terms of seat sharing for the upcoming assembly polls and indicated that if he was not made such an offer, he could enter an alliance with rebel RJD MLA Pappu Yadav’s Jan Adhikar Party. The statement comes at a time when a good show in the Legislative Council polls has emboldened the BJP .

The 'Make in India' initiative of the government today received '2015 Asia-Pacific Economic Development Innovation: Policy and Program Implementation Excellence Award' from US-based consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.

A 14-hour general strike in Manipur called by joint committee on Inner Line Permit system (JCILPS) to press its demand for introducing an effective bill on the implementation of the Inner Line Permit System in the Assembly began at 5am on Tuesday.

Having failed to get their demand for ‘One Rank One Pension’ implemented despite 30 days of agitation, the ex-servicemen community on Tuesday announced that they will “regretfully heighten” their agitation and hold a major rally in poll-bound Bihar next month.

In a surprise move, hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani has decided against attending the Eid Milan being hosted by the Pakistan High Commission here on July 21 over the Kashmir issue being "ignored" at Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's meeting with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in Russia last week.

India on Wednesday took up with Pakistan twice the issue of firing by its forces in a "major ceasefire violation" of the LoC in the Akhnoor sector in Jammu in which one woman was killed, saying it was "disappointed" at the fresh breach.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the deadlock over land acquisition was seriously impacting rural development, as Congress chief ministers boycotted the Niti Aayog meeting called by him to discuss the contentious land bill

National Conference leader and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi for missing the Iftar party hosted by President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday

India and Bangladesh have planned to complete by November 30 the process of shifting of people living in border enclaves as per their citizenship choice under the provision of the historic Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) ratified by the two countries last month.

Funds to the tune of Rs 92,000 crore will be spent by the Centre on development of North East, including construction of highways and developing rail networks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday as he held a meeting of the Chief Ministers of the region here.

Farmers in India run the risk of planting too much, too fast in the current monsoon season as an unexpected dry spell starts to wilt crops across the country, raising fears of lower yields and surging food prices in a mostly impoverished nation.

An Egyptian naval vessel has caught fire in the eastern Mediterranean during a clash with fighters affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in Sinai Peninsula, the military said.

Japan’s SoftBank Corp., one of the top two investors in start-ups in India, is shutting down its venture capital (VC) arm and will avoid investing in early-stage firms, shifting its focus entirely towards backing more established companies, according to a report.

Chief Minister Anandiben Patel refuted media reports based on data from United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) survey on malnutrition and claimed that figures quoted by these reports are ten years old.

Greece reopened its banks and ordered billions of euros owed to international creditors to be repaid on Monday in the first signs of a return to normal after last week's deal to agree a tough new package of bailout reforms.

The pilot started in May was successful in Hyderabad and Nairobi in Africa. This opens up more business opportunity for the company in Indian cities where cash payment is more often a dominant and trusted option for riders.

The Centre today told the Supreme Court that it has already spent a substantial amount of money on implementing the Aadhar scheme and it would be too late to scrap the programme which is a pivotal link to various welfare schemes.

Yakub Memon, the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts convict whose curative petition was dismissed by the Supreme Court earlier in the day, submitted a mercy petition for the Maharashtra governor on Tuesday evening, in the last-ditch effort to prevent execution of his death sentence on July 30.

At least 24 civilians have been killed and 22 others injured in the southern Somali town of Marka after troops from the African Union opened fire on unarmed residents, local residents and a health worker have told Al Jazeera.

A pair of veteran cybersecurity researchers have shown they can use the internet to turn off a car's engine as it drives, sharply escalating the stakes in the debate about the safety of increasingly connected cars and trucks.

Delhi tops the list of sexual harassment cases in higher educational institutes in the country. HRD minister Smriti Z Irani told Lok Sabha on Wednesday that 75 cases of sexual harassment cases in higher educational institutes have been reported between April 2014 and March this year, 27 of which are from Delhi alone.

As many as 2.86 lakh toilets have been constructed in schools across the country under the swachh vidyalaya initiative with Andaman and Nicobar, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Kerala, Puducherry and Sikkim achieving 100 per cent targe

All the 39 Indians held hostage in Mosul town of Iraq by ISIS militants over a year ago were "safe", government said on Wednesday quoting multiple third party sources and asserted that efforts were on to secure their release.

Nobel prize winner Peter Higgs has joined the ranks of Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein by winning the world’s oldest scientific prize, the Royal Society’s Copley Medal, for his pioneering work on the theory of the Higgs boson, which was discovered in 2012.

The Centre on Friday approved release of Rs 2,801.59 crore as relief for Uttar Pradesh's hailstorm-affected farmers. The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by home minister Rajnath Singh and attended by finance minister Arun Jaitley and minister of state for agriculture Sanjeev Kumar Balyan.
The relief amount was sanctioned after examining the report of the central team which had visited the hailstorm-hit areas in the state. The high-level committee on central assistance to states affected by natural disasters decided that the entire fund will go to the UP state disaster relief fund and the state government will distribute the compensation amount to farmers as per the damaged crops, sources said.
The NDA government has changed the norms for giving compensation to farmers whose crops were damaged. Now, those farmers whose crops were damaged up to 33 per cent will be entitled for compensation. Earlier it was limited up to 50 per cent.
The Centre has made changes in the norms to purchase shrivelled grains and tweaked the standards on moisture content to help the farmers.
The move is aimed at ensuring that wheat farmers get the full minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 1,450 per quintal.
According to the new norms, farmers in rainfed areas will be eligible to claim assistance - in the form of input subsidy - of Rs 6,800 per hectare, compared to the earlier Rs 4,500.
Compensation for crops in areas with assured irrigation has been increased from Rs 9,000 to Rs 13,500 per hectare, and that for perennial (horticultural) crops from Rs 12,000 to 18,000 per hectare. The relief is subject to a cap of two hectares per farmer.

Sixteen years after Pakistan sprang a surprise on the Indian Army and triggered a war in the mountains of Kargil, army chief General Dalbir Singh on Friday said India had reinforced its security architecture significantly to avert a repeat of 1999.

An index of the major developing-nation currencies fell to an all-time low this week, extending its drop over the past year to 19 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg going back to 1999. The Russian ruble, Colombia's peso and the Brazilian real have fallen more than 30 percent over the past year for some of the worst global selloffs.

Scientists have successfully altered the neural networks of laboratory mice using a wireless controller; allowing them to study the effects of neural stimulation without invasive procedures and without test subjects tethered by wires.

The Pakistan Army on Monday released photos and videos purportedly retrieved from a commercial Chinese-made drone shot down along the LoC that it said proved the pilotless aircraft was launched for a spying mission from the Indian side.

Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday stayed the Haryana government's decision to provide reservation to Jats and four other castes in the public employment in the state government under the Specially Backward Class (SBC) quota.

In a startling revelation by the man who has confessed before police that he was indeed behind the murder of a prime witness in the Asaram case, Narayan Pandey, now in custody, has said that the godman has a 'fidayeen-like squad' of 2,000 followers, whose mission is to live and die for their leader and they will kill anybody deposing against him.

A Chinese firm specializing in precision technology has set up the first unmanned factory at Dongguan city where all the processes are operated by robots, regarded as futuristic solution to tide over China's looming demographic crisis and dependence on manual workers.

The pattern of the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2015 to be held on November 29 for admissions to prestigious B-schools has been changed to provide an "even" field to candidates from divergent streams and for a better assessment of data interpretation ability.

The Patna high court on Tuesday ordered an interim ban on use of pictures of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and his ministers as well as any other publicity material in the state government's ambitious "Badh Chala Bihar" campaign.

Dismissing allegations that it was holding back the caste census report to "suppress facts", the government on Tuesday said as many as 8.19 crore errors were found in the caste returns, of which nearly 1.46 crore were yet to be rectified by the respective states.

Archaeologists say two students have found a human tooth from about 560,000 years ago in a famous prehistoric cave in southwestern France, the oldest human body part ever discovered in the country. The archaeology students were participating in excavations at Tautavel, one of Europe’s most important prehistoric sites, under the supervision of scientists.

A battery of visual effects professionals from India are behind the breathtaking visual effects seen in "Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation" movie which is set to release in India on August 7, a media report said.

Scientists have found that land under the Chesapeake Bay — the largest estuary in the US — is sinking rapidly and the country's capital, Washington, DC, could drop by six or more inches by 2100 — adding to the problems of sea-level rise

Way back in 2013, we had started News in Shorts with the promise that we will deliver crisp news articles within 60 words. In our journey towards fulfilling that promise and also the larger promise of delivering a news reading experience which is simple for our users,
we have a come a long way

Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi apologized for dancing with girls of tea garden workers community at a function in Golaghat district on Wednesday when the nation was in mourning as a mark of respect to former President APJ Abdul Kalam, who died on Monday while delivering a lecture at IIM-Shillong.

Shiv Sena, the ruling alliance partner in Maharashtra as well as at the Centre, on Wednesday said India should not participate in the Commonwealth Convention to be held in Pakistan this year in view of the terrorist attack in Punjab that left seven people dead.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday lamented that BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha had "embarrassed" the party by signing a petition to the President against the execution of Yakub Memon and said it was "extremely sad" that the actor-turned-politician had gone against the party line.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) recently put one of its special aircrafts, an Embraer, for a unique operation — transporting a kidney and a liver from Pune to Delhi. It was used to save the life of two critically-ill patients, a 56-year-old ex-serviceman with liver cancer and another jawan suffering from kidney failure. Both are doing good post-surgery, said doctors.

Three policemen, including a special house officer, and a taxi driver were injured after suspected militants opened fire on a police checkpost in Pattan area of north Kashmir's Baramulla district on Friday night.

At the Taliban meeting this week where Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour was named as the Islamist militant group's new head, several senior figures in the movement, including the son and brother of late leader Mullah Omar, walked out in protest.

Planning to inject $11 billion of capital into debt-laden state banks over the next four years, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday sought parliament's approval to boost budget spending by $4 billion in the current fiscal year.

The suspension of 25 Congress members from the Lok Sabha may have been defended by the treasury benches, but the rancour between the two sides threatens the government’s reform agenda, with the Opposition party warning of a “disastrous fallout”.

Cab aggregator Ola is shutting operations of its subsidiary TaxiForSure (TFS) in around 22 smaller cities. The company will migrate all TFS users in cities including Kochi, Trivandrum, Coimbatore, Tiruchi, Madurai among others.

Bangalore-based logistics startup LetsTransport has raised $ 1.3 million in funding from a round led by Singapore-based Japanese venture capital firm Rebright Partners along with participation from angel investors Ankush Nijhawan, Gaurav Bhatnagar and Manish Dhingra

The experimental feature, currently live in the US and Japan, simply brings up a list of headlines that are trending on Twitter. Tap on a headline and you'll be taken to a story screen that features an image, a block of text from the report and top tweets discussing the story.

Expressing confidence of over eight per cent growth rate in the current fiscal year, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said the Indian economy will boost further with the government taking all effective measures in the financial sector.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Thursday said the search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370 will continue, following Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s announcement that the piece of wreckage which washed up on Reunion Island was from the missing jet.

The Independence Day Lalbagh Flower Show from August 7 to 16 is all set to welcome visitors from across the country with the Glass House hosting nearly 800 aesthetic exhibits. The pièce de résistance this year would be the replica of the Bangalore Palace created using 2 lakh Dutch roses, apart from the five Maharajas of Mysuru made using flowers.

In a rare move, an army court in Pakistan today punished two former generals for illegally investing Rs 4.3 billion in the stock market and causing a loss of Rs 1.8 billion to National Logistics Cell (NLC).

Former Public Works Department (PWD) minister Churchill Alemao was arrested by the Crime Branch of the Goa Police late on Wednesday in connection with the Louis Berger bribery case, in which Goa’s former chief minister Digambar Kamat is also linked.

An Australian court on Wednesday revoked the government's environmental approval for one of the world's biggest coal mines under construction in the Australian outback by Indian conglomerate Adani Mining.

Prison Break, a show about hot tattooed men learning how far they will go for the people they love as they writhe inside cages, is coming back for another escape. Deadlinereports that the series, which limped off the air in 2009 after two incredible seasons and two mediocre ones, will return for 10 episodes. The first one is now being written by creator Paul Scheuring, with stars Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell returning as brothers who perpetually find themselves caught up in shadowy conspiracies. They will probably have to break out of something again. It could be fun!

A senior BCCI functionary has been receiving threat calls and emails for the last few weeks from people claiming to be members of Dawood Ibrahim's gang and demanding Rs 100 crore as protection money. Top sources claimed that the matter was taken seriously and two suspects were nabbed from Nellore in Andhra Pradesh.

Local BJP leader Avinash Kumar was chased and shot dead from close quarters by three assailants when he was out for a morning walk near his house in the heart of Bihar capital today, with the incident being caught on CCTV.

Suspected militants tonight attacked a police post in a remote area of Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir, injuring two special police officers (SPOs), a day after a terror strike there saw a Pakistani terrorist being captured by villagers.

Nearly 1.5 lakh people are killed in the country per year with more than five lakh accidents being witnessed on an average each year, government told the Lok Sabha on Thursday, highlighting the seriousness of the problem.

20 children are killed in road accidents every day, a BJP member said in Lok Sabha on Friday, making a strong pitch for a comprehensive law to make roads a safer place and to eliminate the "silent killer".

India is examining a request to double the import duty on aluminium to 10 percent, the country's trade minister said on Friday, after companies such as Vedanta Ltd (VDAN.NS) warned of job cuts due to low world prices and rising supplies from overseas.

New Delhi/Hyderabad: Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday assured TDP MPs from Andhra Pradesh that the central government will "very shortly" announce new measures to help the revenue-deficit state.

After a slow start to 2015, smartphone shipments to India recovered in the second quarter, boosted by models that cost $100 or less. According to IDC, 26.5 million devices were shipped to India during that time period, up 44 percent from 18.4 million units a year ago. Samsung, Micromax and Intex took a combined 51 percent share of the market.